Edge
by Revanche
Summary: It's not that he's unfamiliar with mortality.


Title: Edge   
Author: Revanche   
Spoilers: None   
Rating: PG-13   
Summary: It's not that he's unfamiliar with mortality.  
Notes: Written for the "first" flashfic challenge. 

xxxxx

She is sprawled across the grass, dry brown leaves shattered beneath the weight of arms, legs. A chill wind lifts strands of her hair, chills freckled skin. She went down onto dirt, breathed dust. Leaves swirled around her and the night swallowed her cries, rendered them unintelligible, irrelevant, as though she spoke in tongues. There are bruises like bracelets on her wrists. Her eyes are closed. There is a cut below her left eye and a streak of red down her cheek as though she cried blood when she knew that there was no hope.

Ducky is saying that she was killed after midnight. The witching hour. Tony makes the connection before Ducky even begins his story.

She was dressed as a pirate for Halloween. Now she just looks broken. She made a mistake and she died for it. It wasn't stupidity. She just didn't think she could die. Or maybe she did. She knew it and she just didn't think it would happen yet --

Or maybe he's projecting.

Anyway, he thinks he could have known her, once. For at least a little while.

The sky is beginning to darken, discolor. In poetry, autumn is old age, withering. The imminence of death. Spring is so far away.

He used to love fall. Before he learned what it really meant. That despite the metaphors, there is truth in poetry. Pity this busy monster, manunkind.

He'd burn his books, if he didn't think the gesture would be symbolic. Not to mention that the image of himself standing in the middle of a D.C. park, lighter in hand, staring at the smoldering ashes of his meager collection, is just too fucking funny for words.

The camera snaps and the flash illuminates the clearing. Bright white light renders it exposed, etches it in shades of dark clothing, milky skin, bone-dry leaves.

There's work to be done. Gibbs plays director. Kate continues to take pictures. Tony takes notes, but he doesn't really need to.

This isn't the sort of thing he'll forget.

xxxxx

Tony flicks stale candy corn across the room, watches the artificial colors bounce across Kate's desk, disappear over the edge. She lifts her head slowly, glares at him. He grins, rustles plastic.

The dead woman's name is -- was -- Kirsten. She'd been enlisted for six months. Was on leave.

Her name was Kirsten, and though he never knew her, he thinks that he saw her once, turning to look over her shoulder as she stepped from the curb, her hair blowing in the wind.

But of course he didn't. The odds of that this happened are staggering, if not astronomical. There are thousands of women and his life has intersects with so many each day. She does not have to be one of them. It does not have to be her. She is a variable. A victim of fate. Not random, once they connect DNA, time, motive.

"Dinozzo," Gibbs says. "Addresses."

"On it," he says automatically, carefully storing these thoughts away for another time. A safer time.

He hopes that he'll never have to see her again.

He knows that she was only the first.

xxxxx

There's a horror movie marathon on cable. He watches the first one and gives up on the rest. Right now, they seem too rehearsed. There is too much joy in the screams, the pounding music, the violin murders. He leaves the set on, though, because the idea of a completely silent apartment is somehow worse. At least he can critique the movies. Silence offers nothing.

He's standing outside, on what the ad called a balcony. It's more like a glorified fire escape, but that's not the point. He leans against the metal railing, feels the metal's chill begin to seep into his own body.

He stands near the edge -- just a little too close to the edge -- and he looks across at the city. Neon flickers in the window of the store on the corner. Something's burning nearby. Something's always burning. There are always emergencies; disasters never end. But when he looks far enough, when he looks at the glittering buildings in the distance and the hazy promise of quiet beyond, he can sometimes manage to pretend that it doesn't really matter. Job security, that's all.

Not to mention that the city really is beautiful at night, as long as he doesn't think about it. As long as he doesn't think about what's happening within. About Kirsten, running from her attacker, falling across the ground, shadows cartwheeling around her. About the others, the ones they do not see. The ones who go unnamed.

He looks down, looks at the street below.

Rapid deceleration syndrome. It's not the fall that kills. It's the landing.

Any minute now, he's gonna hit the ground.

He shivers suddenly. He's too high up. Turns away. He needs to go inside. His hands are trembling and he needs to be warm. He closes the door behind him, drops onto the couch and rubs his hands together. On screen, Jamie Lee Curtis discusses the reality of the boogeyman.

He doesn't want to die.

It's just that now he doesn't look at a scene -- a murder, the weapon, smears of blood, the corpse -- and see somebody else. See his partner, his team, his friends.

He looks, and he sees himself.

xxxxx

End


End file.
